Word: thieu
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Nguyen Gia Thieu's neighbors rarely saw him, except when they glimpsed his silver Mercedes gliding through the gates of his three-story villa in Ho Chi Minh City. His lifestyle?the house, the servants, the beauty-queen wife?befitted one of Vietnam's top entrepreneurs, but it infuriated the community. One neighbor snarls, "They are too rich to even look at ordinary people." So there was no sympathy on Jan. 7 when police arrested Thieu, 38, then raided his house, hauling off reams of documents and more than $250,000 in cash. The charge: his Dong Nam Telecom Trade...
...Authorities hailed it as Vietnam's biggest-ever tax-fraud bust?proof, they claim, that the country is serious about tackling fraud and corruption. But another factor has tongues wagging both in Vietnam's boardrooms and at its noodle-soup stands. Thieu and his older brother Nguyen Trong Thang were known not just for their wealth?their private company boasted estimated revenue of $60 million in 2002?but for who they are. Born in Vietnam but raised in France, the brothers are Viet Kieu, as people who fled the country following the fall of Saigon in 1975 are known. Once...
...always read about the contribution of 'patriotic Viet Kieu' in the newspapers," complains Vu Du, a retired technician. "But look at all these fraudsters, getting rich and cheating the government. If we're not careful, we'll lose our country to such people." Thieu's case will only intensify the suspicions. State media has reported that 33 companies, some of them government owned, are being investigated due to their ties to Dong Nam Telecom...
...trial date has been set for Thieu. As for his brother, he's been questioned and released without being charged. Thieu's family insists that both are innocent. Meanwhile, some sympathizers wonder if Dong Nam is being targeted not because it was unusually corrupt but because its owners lost the support of patrons within the government who had previously looked away. After all, tax evasion is so pervasive in Vietnam, says Thai, that he's been called a "sucker" for bothering to pay them. In Thieu's neighborhood, people don't much care whether he's guilty...
DIED. NGUYEN VAN THIEU, 76, controversial President of South Vietnam during the war, who survived various attacks but resigned--and fled--as North Vietnamese troops approached Saigon in April 1975; in Boston. Thieu seized power in 1965, and at the urging of the U.S., held elections in 1967. But he surrounded himself with corrupt generals and was perceived by many as ineffective...